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Hacker News Guidelines

(news.ycombinator.com)
446 points tonmoy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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lapcat ◴[] No.37251854[source]
IMO the guidelines could use some updates. For example, there are some unwritten conventions that could be formalized:

1) Search for duplicates before you submit a link.

2) If the submission is not from the current year, append (YEAR) at the end of the title.

3) It should be clarified that the guidelines about comments apply to linked article authors too. "Be kind. Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work."

4) There's dang's own idiosyncratic, controversial, unwritten exception to "Please submit the original source", i.e., unless it's a corporate PR.

[EDIT:] Three different replies have said to append [pdf] and [video] to submissions, but that's already in the guidelines. "If you submit a video or pdf, please warn us by appending [video] or [pdf] to the title."

replies(11): >>37251884 #>>37251894 #>>37251910 #>>37251953 #>>37252203 #>>37252412 #>>37252427 #>>37252464 #>>37252487 #>>37252828 #>>37253626 #
weinzierl ◴[] No.37251910[source]
Besides (YEAR) there also seems to be the convention of [pdf] and less strongly [video]. The latter two use square brackets instead of parentheses.
replies(1): >>37251951 #
lapcat ◴[] No.37251951[source]
That's actually in the guidelines already: "If you submit a video or pdf, please warn us by appending [video] or [pdf] to the title."
replies(1): >>37252471 #
1. weinzierl ◴[] No.37252471[source]
Oh, indeed, it's been a while since I read it. Then I would like to add the guideline "Read the posting, before you comment."